So, sitting here around 11pm, figured I’d try to relate all the ridiculous and childish battles we see on TV with blogging and see if we can maybe make this productive for some of us besides the media outlets.

Let’s see how this goes, and hope you can join in the discussion below too!

What Our Blogs Can Learn from The Midterm Elections

Here are 11 lessons I’ve observed watching and listening to news from as many channels as I can gather surrounding the Elections on November 6th, 2018. These are real lessons I believe can improve our blogging voices and help us survive blogging losses, so I hope at least a few of you listen.

Slogans matter, a lot From “drain the swamp” to “make America ___ again” to “democrats create mobs, republicans create jobs” it makes a big difference in a noisy world having a memorable slogan. If your blog doesn’t have one, use your next night our with friends to bounce some ideas around and generate one. People love to help, and if you’re stuck you’ll be amazed how original non-bloggers can be!

You can be everywhere while sleeping The major lesson from our 1st eBook was how to get readers to grow your blog for you, empower them to, while you’re away from the blog, preparing blog content in advance or working on other content. Mr. Trump does this (makes himself be everywhere) by continuously coming up with new dramatic events to win the news cycle. People cannot not talk about him, and both the negative and the positive seem to boil down to more positive.

Selling out always happens (and you’re allow to sell out multiple times) After watching the cast of Fox News go on stage to solicit votes for Trump (he’s not even on the ballot) at the recent last-minute campaigns, I always had to vomit. They were so aggressively telling people exactly what to do and glueing themselves and their careers to a man, a brand, they probably didn’t even know 5 years ago. The thing is though, in the public eye just like the online world, you’re allowed to sell out. You can take supportive stances and advertise, then quiet down, and come back a month later and say something different! As long as you make the effort to explain to your audience what your thoughts and opinions truly are, people will respect it, and admire your positions of success.

Looking in the past is always a loss You cannot look back on past losses or mourn them for too long in the public eye. Even your sympathizers will leave you eventually.

Direct response copy always outperforms in a competitive arena Telling people exactly what to do (or who to vote for) always wins in a highly competitive arena where people haven’t yet made up their minds. DRC shows confidence and people need that to make a decision. Just like how every Geico commercial tells you to “switch now and see how much you can save” or every Bounty add ends with “try us today” it simply helps to tell people exactly what to do in a crunch time. It does NOT help to say “just vote” because that sounds like a chore and a confusing one too. Unless the premise is already a fun or relaxed one of course, then it’s okay and encouraged to use much less aggressive techniques, or even give many options to a potential customer and let them pick. Sorta of like how a real estate broker would never say “sign this apartment now” but will find other ways to get you to that same conclusion.

You don’t have to win, you just have to keep up This one is hard for me to understand, but important to keep up with blogging. The idea behind this lesson the 2018 midterms have taught me is that it really isn’t ever about winning. As a politician you want to win, but you won’t win on every issue. Your blogs have their wins but will rarely ever be the best, the winner. But you do need to keep up with new content each week to maintain and improve blog traffic over time. You have to be there, be relevant. Just like how the newscasters who claim to support Trump or the opponents or whoever will wake up the same the next day after a loss or a win, just a fueled to keep fighting their fight. You don’t have to win, you just have to keep up, and more importantly, show up.

What people say is rarely what they do When people say they’ll vote or try to vote or want to vote, how may times do they actually vote? When your blog audience says they’ll try to lose weight, or save more money, or try beauty products, or spend more time with their cat or dog, will they? You can’t take what people say at face value out there, you simply cannot. Because the real value lies in knowing or predicting what people actually do with their time.

You don’t have to mean it Just like all the ridiculous things Trump says on television or among his friends, you don’t have to mean everything you say. In fact, if you do mean everything you say, you will become predictable and your opponents will not only corner you but worse, figure out what you’ll do next. They’ll then sandbag your best moves while your audience declares you a boring mess.

You do have to be original Because people are smart and connected today and will spot a fake instantly.

Countdowns are effective to build a large future audience Want 1000 people to show up for your next blog post, Facebook Live session or podcast? This is not accomplished just by showing up with a newbie blog and writing amazing content, even if it is downright amazing content. This is done by creating a buzz, and letting people know when you’ll be live. A few reminders and teasers can go such a long way, not only to tell people when they should actually show up but give them a taste of the things you know they already like!

You can’t complain if you don’t vote Just like the “you don’t have to win, you just have to keep up, and show up” advice above, if you don’t take the basic step of showing up to where everyone already is to make their voices heard, you hardly have a chance. You can blog from your living room and share it online, but if you don’t get to the conferences, meet major bloggers, exchange cards and build real relationships off the blogs, it will almost never happen on the blogs. Similarly, if you don’t show up to vote, you can sound off all you want at the dinner table but you’re kind of just doing it for the sake of a good uninformed argument (which I love by the way).

I hope you take these lessons to heart and deep down realize that much of what goes on in politics and political build ups like this is a distraction, a dance persay, to keep your eyes where the media wants them and away from real issues we need to actually work on.

What Have the 2018 Midterms Taught You?

Have you found any part of the midterms, speeches, debates or just general political noise to stand out particularly for you? What did you learn? Please share that below in the comments!

Share This Post

One Response to "November 2018 Midterms: 11 Lessons They Can Teach us About Blogging"

Hi Greg, what a fantastic post. You’ve combined both politics and blogging into one post which is amazing. As you said, slogans work like a charm. They create the word of mouth publicity which helps you easily get recognition with your blog or website. That being said, being a purple cow is the best way to stand out from the crowd.

It’s also important to be original and have a personality. When it comes to blogging, having your own unique writing tone helps to a large extent. That being said, make sure to focus on what works and analyse your competitor sites to see how they are bringing more traffic and sales to their sites.

And you’re rightly said about creating buzz to make even a new blog successful. You can’t make a new blog profitable by creating great content. Even if it’s damn good, if you don’t promote, no one’s going to share, link or comment on your blog posts. So make sure to create buzz even before you launch your blog and be consistent with your efforts if you want to make money from it in the long run.

About DearBlogger

DearBlogger is a free WordPress resource and community geared towards providing you free and fast advice to build a better blog. DearBlogger was founded in September 2012 in Manhattan by Greg Narayan. Our mission on this site is to provide clearer answers than what's out there currently, and make blogging, advertising, online marketing, web design, eCommerce, and any kind of website creation mainly using WordPress easier for beginners.